High tolls are strangling Staten Island's economy

The Port Authority's toll increase has hurt New York Container Terminal and will hurt any business that uses trucks to get on and off Staten Island. Staten Island Advance photo

Christine Quinn gave her own State of the City address this week — her last one as Council speaker. Of course, she hopes to be giving State of the City addresses for the next several years as mayor.

Hers was in keeping with the tradition of such speeches being sweeping and ambitious, and like any smart candidate for citywide office, she made sure to give props to the city's smallest, but often politically pivotal, borough.

Echoing what many Staten Islanders have said, Ms. Quinn extolled the "untapped potential" of this borough's waterfront.

"Let's finally take full advantage of the potential in Staten Island's many waterfront communities," she said at City Hall Monday afternoon. "These neighborhoods are already home to tugboat companies, drydock and repair facilities, and of course, the New York Container Terminal."

No argument here. A lot of Staten Islanders believe that the waterfront, particularly on the North and East shores, has been shamefully neglected. But Ms. Quinn's vision for expanding waterfront development here might raise some eyebrows among those familiar with the situation.

She proposes creating a New York City Regional Export Council of industry and government leaders to develop and guide "a comprehensive regional plan with the goal of doubling our city's exports by the year 2020."

She added, "This will create more jobs on the Staten Island waterfront, and boost sales for companies all over the city and the region."

Staten Island's waterfront, she said, would become an exporting hub.

It's just the kind of visionary big idea that "state of . . . " addresses are supposed to feature. And it addresses an issue that has long been a sore point here, so it's good politics.

But it overlooks one critical fact: On the same day that Ms. Quinn unveiled her ideas for the waterfront, word came of the long-awaited Port Authority economic study of the effect of high tolls on the New York Container Terminal (NYCT). The Port Authority didn't want to release the study, completed a year ago; it only did so grudgingly after giving up on its long-running legal battle with Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis, who went to court last summer to get the stalled analysis made public.

Now we see it's no wonder the P.A. dragged it feet on disclosing the 103-page study's contents. They clearly point to steadily increasing tolls on the Goethals, Bayonne bridges and the Outerbridge Crossing putting the New York Container Terminal at a grave and potentially fatal disadvantage in terms of costs.

The analysis compared drayage — the transport of goods by truck over a short distance — at NYCT and at Global Container Terminal (GCT) in Bayonne over a one-week period early last year. GCT, of course, can be accessed without having to use a Port Authority bridge

Even before the $2 per axle toll increase that went into effect on P.A. bridges on Sept. 18, 2011, the round-trip toll cost a trucker going to NYCT $37.03 on top of other costs. After the P.A. toll increase, the cost differential for truckers using NYCT as opposed to GCT swelled to $49.34.

And don't forget that truck tolls will continue to rise by $2 per axle through 2015. The actual cost in 2015 for a five-axle truck using one of the three bridges between New Jersey and Staten Island to get to NYCT will be $93 for E-ZPass overnight and $108 for E-ZPass peak toll. Again, trucks accessing GCT don't have to pay this added cost.

So if you're a trucking company that transports containers for export or import, which is what NYCT and GCT both do, where are you going to look to pay the best price? It's a no-brainer for any business leader. That's seen in the erosion of NYCT's business since the toll hike.

Ms. Malliotakis said, "These tolls have a definite effect on the success of businesses, let alone local residents. It's now been proven through independent analysis. All New Yorkers can now point to this study whenever the Port Authority, MTA or other public agency tries to use New York motorists as cash cows."

She added, "It is my hope that this study will help AAA make its case in federal court that the tolls are unjust, unreasonable and should be reversed."

That's why, unless the court provides substantial toll relief, any company that does business on Staten Island, like New York Container Terminal, is going to be at a decided disadvantage.

We appreciate Ms. Quinn's attempt to boost the development of Staten Island's waterfront, but absent that toll relief, her hope of Staten Island becoming a bustling export hub won't happen.